12:29 pm

Thu May 29, 2014

With Swift, Quiet Moves, Nigerian Group Limits Religious Violence

A man cleans up the site of Tuesday's car bomb explosion in Jos, Nigeria, on Thursday. The city was spared deadly reprisals, in part because a peace group intervened.

Sunday AlambaAP

The city of Jos sits on an invisible fault line between Nigeria's mostly Christian south and its largely Muslim north. Its population is almost 50-50 Muslim-Christian.

So it's not surprising that twin car bombs in a crowded downtown vegetable market on May 20 killed both Christians and Muslims. Most of the 133 victims were women, and 25 were children.

But that could have been only the beginning of the killing, as was the case in the past.

"The choice of Jos, to make this very huge bomb, was deliberate," says Ezekiel Gomos, head of the Jos Business School. "They anticipated that Muslims and Christians would start fighting. That was the intention."

For more than a decade this has been the unavoidable pattern in Jos. Acts of terror have sparked religious riots that have killed thousands.

"When the Muslims see, 'Oh, there are many Muslims killed,' they go after the Christians," Gomos says. "When the Christians see many Christians are killed, they go after the Muslims."

But last week, in the days after the biggest blast Jos had ever seen, that axiom did not hold.

The fragile peace was due in large part to a 37-year-old peace worker named Sadiq Musahong. He is the secretary of the Conflict Management and Mitigation Regional Council, a group run by a Nigerian NGO and funded by American taxpayers through USAID. He describes the council as a covert "information network" that attempts to stop sectarian conflict before it spreads.

Last week, the council got a major test.

Within hours of the marketplace explosions on May 20, Christian youth gangs blocked one of the main roads, where they then ambushed and lynched two Muslim men passing by. The men's bodies, dismembered with machetes, were left under a bridge.

The cycle of revenge killings in Jos had begun again and had the potential to escalate rapidly.

Musahong knew that as soon as Muslim gangs learned of the killings, they would go on their own rampage.

"The moment that you allow the town to know that two people were attacked because they belong to [a certain] religion, the whole town will go in flames again," he said.

Keeping The Killings Quiet

But the council responded swiftly and in an unorthodox way: Musahong got local police to remove the bodies — not to the hospital, or a mosque, or anywhere public — but to the basement of a remote police outpost.

An imam from a local mosque was brought in covertly to perform the traditional burial rites. The deaths were kept out of the newspapers. That first night, even the wives and children of the murdered men were not told, for fear they'd spread the news.

Musahong uses a term of war to describe the two lynched men: they were "collateral damage," he says, in the religious conflict he was trying to stop from spreading.

To do that, Musahong says, he had to keep the deaths as secret as possible in the first 24 hours after the bombing, when emotions ran highest and the potential for violence was at its peak.

In spite of his precautions, he could not entirely stop the news from getting out.

That night, the council learned through one of its network of youth informers that two Muslim youth gangs were mobilizing. They planned to set up a roadblock to kill Christians in revenge for the two Muslims killed that afternoon.

"Fortunately," Musahong says, "we got the information an hour and a half before the boys moved in." He and the council immediately communicated this to commanders at the Nigerian police.

Gangs Are Turned Back

By the time the mob arrived, he says, "they met well over 50 or 60 well-armed soldiers there. In the next one, two hours, they had no option but to go back to their homes and sleep."

By Wednesday afternoon, the critical 24-hour window had passed. Musahong could confidently report to authorities in Jos that the city was safe.

Safe, that is, until the cycle repeated itself.

On Saturday, a car bomb exploded in Jos near an open-air TV viewing of the Champions League soccer final, killing three Muslims, including the bomber, the BBC reported.

Hours later Muslim youth gangs marched out to kill Christians in revenge. Just as on Tuesday, the council's network of youth informers came through. Musahong got advance warning about the roadblock and communicated that to the Nigerian authorities. Police showed up and stopped the young men. After another sleepless night, the cycle of violence was averted.

But Musahong admits that Nigeria will never be truly safe from sectarian violence until it addresses a problem that peace workers can't solve.

"The level of unemployment is so high that the youths are there, in their thousands and their millions and nothing to do," Musahong says. "They're always ready to embark on such very nasty acts."

ROBERT SIEGEL, BYLINE: And I'm Robert Siegel. Nigeria has suffered several terrorist attacks this month. The most deadly attack was a bombing last week in the central city of Jos. More than 130 people were killed. What followed that attack surprised many people. The city did not descend into religious riots as it has so many times before. NPR's Gregory Warner reports, that's largely thanks to a council of peace workers and their steps in the critical 24 hours after the blast.

GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: The city of Jos sits on the invisible line between Nigeria's mostly Christian south and its mostly Muslim north. The population of the city is almost 50-50, Muslim, Christian. And so it's not surprising that last week's bomb in a vegetable market in Jos killed both Christians and Muslims. What is surprising is what happened or what didn't happened afterward. Ezekiel Gomos is head of the Jos business school.

EZEKIEL GOMOS: I think the choice of Jos to make this very huge bomb was deliberate. They anticipated that people in the street would go and fight. Muslims and Christians would start fighting.

WARNER: Because that is the pattern in Jos. Thousands of people have died over the last few years in religious riots.

GOMOS: So when the Muslims see, oh, many Muslims are killed, they go after that Christians. And when the Christians see many Christains are killed, they go after the Muslims. So that was the intention.

WARNER: But to the surprise of Muslims and Christians and pretty much everybody I met in Jos, that didn't happen. The first few days after the blast were peaceful. Ezekiel Gomos tells me that peace is in large part thanks to one very sleepless guy.

GOMOS: You haven't slept for two days, right?

SADIQ MUSAHONG: Yeah.

GOMOS: He has not slept for two days. So he would tell you what kind of things - who he met and the kind of places he went to.

WARNER: Sadiq Musahong is 37 years old.

MUSAHONG: I'm a peace worker. I'm a youth worker and also a member of the Red Cross.

WARNER: And he's also head of the Conflict Management and Mitigation Regional Council run by a Nigerian NGO, but funded by American taxpayers through USAID. And the council, he says, is a covert information network in Jos to stop sectarian violence before it spreads. Within hours after the blast in the market, Christian youth gangs had ambushed and killed two innocent Muslim men walking home. The cycle of revenge killings in Jos had just begun.

MUSAHONG: Yeah, because the moment you allow the town to know that two people were attacked because they belong to X, Y, Z religion, the whole town will go in flames again.

WARNER: So to stop the city from going into flames, Sadiq had to prevent those men from becoming martyrs.

MUSAHONG: We quietly involved just the local police there, and then the bodies were quietly moved.

WARNER: Moved not to the hospital or anywhere public, but to the basement of a police outpost. A Muslim cleric was secretly brought in, in the evening, to prepare the bodies for traditional burial. In the first night, even the men's wives and children weren't told.

MUSAHONG: Their families just found out they are missing - because for us, we feel like the two deaths unfortunately is collateral damage. But I think the two lives been lost is a little bit better compared to the situation where the whole city will go on flames again.

WARNER: Sadiq said he just had to keep the death secret for 24 hours. That's when emotions are highest and the potential for violence is greatest. But even with all those precautions, he did not stop the news from getting out. And that night, the council learned that two Muslim gangs who heard about the killings were gathering in revenge to set up a roadblock to kill Christians.

MUSAHONG: Fortunately we got the information an hour and a half before the boys moved. And so when the boys arrived, they met well over 50 or 60 well-armed soldiers there. And in the next one, two hours they had no option but to go to their homes and sleep.

WARNER: By the following afternoon, the critical 24-hour window had passed.

MUSAHONG: By 4 pm, I said, now I can report that, yes, we are safe.

WARNER: Safe at least until the cycle repeated. Saturday night another car bomb killed two people in a Muslim area this time. In response, some Muslim youth gangs marched out to kill Christians. Sadiq found out in advance, he sent in the cops. After another sleepless night violence was averted. But Sadiq says his city will never be truly safe from religious violence until it addresses a problem that peace workers can't solve.

MUSAHONG: The level of unemployment is so high that the youths are there in their thousands and their millions and nothing to do. And they're always ready to embark on such very nasty acts.

WARNER: It's just that this week, he didn't give them the chance. Gregory Warner, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.